The girls grew up in an atmosphere of devoted companionship, among scenes that were ever changing. They lived much in hotels, and for weeks at a time in their private car, “The Hustle,” which they never ceased to regard as a fascinating playhouse, and where their father, in the midst of his multitudinous cares, found time to watch their developing natures and teach them to grow in grace and spirit, as became the daughters of a soldier.
They were not wholly without lessons, for when they remained for any length of time in one place Mr. Dale’s private secretary was dispatched to find a good school, in which they were immediately placed; while Mr. Dale, who had theories of his own, trained their eyes to keen observation of what they saw and their minds to reason out the obscure according to their own lights. He was full of wisdom and patience and counsel, but he had a way of turning on them when they came for advice and saying, “What do you think?” in a manner that would have been startling to the average child, who is apt to think what he is told. This turning the tables began in their teens, whereby they came to have opinions without being opinionated, for, though requiring them to think out every subject carefully, he yet guided them with a firm hand, giving them in every sort of discussion the wisdom of his wide experience. He was a loving, indulgent father, and the girls adored him, but no sterner disciplinarian ever held sway. Implicit and immediate obedience he demanded—no questioning of his higher authority.
He taught them, too, much of the old-world philosophy, which he had imbibed from extensive reading. They listened to him wonderingly, their eager young minds drinking in the beauty of what he said, but failing at that age to grasp the breadth and depth of all the truths he told them. Sometimes he almost forgot that they were children.
When Julie was twenty and Hester nineteen he took them to Europe. Bridget and Peter Snooks completed the party. They roamed about for a year, and just before they were to sail for home late in the summer Mr. Dale informed the girls that he intended to sell out his large railroad interests; he was tired of their unsettled life, and thought they would all enjoy the novelty of opening their house and taking up their abode in Radnor. Radnor had long ceased to be anything more than a name to the girls, but the proposition opened up joyous possibilities of “making a home for Dad.”
“I will take you down to Cousin Nancy’s in Virginia when we land,” he had said to them in London, “and leave you there a few weeks; she has been begging for a visit from us this long while. Bridget and I will open the house in Radnor and get everything in order; then you can come up and run the establishment and queen it over your old Dad in royal fashion.”
This program had been successfully carried out, except that it could scarcely be said that the girls ran the establishment, for the responsibility lay with Bridget, who assumed the duties of housekeeper—duties she guarded jealously and performed with such skill that there was not a better managed house on the water side of Crana Street. This Radnor people knew through that mysterious agency by which a neighborhood keeps in touch with itself.
After years spent in the narrow confines of a car, however luxurious, and the necessarily limited quarters of hotels, the girls reveled in the spacious house, over which they spread themselves in an amusing fashion, sleeping in turn in the various bedrooms by way of getting acquainted with them all over again, Julie said, and with reckless prodigality hanging some portion of their wardrobe in every closet in the house.
At the end of their first week in Radnor, Hester amused her father by telling him she thought she should enjoy housekeeping exceedingly if they had an elevator, a menu and “The Hustle” side-tracked in the back yard. Reluctantly she admitted that the yard could scarcely be made to hold it, but at least, she suggested airily, he might build a float and anchor the car at their back door on the river. The new life really seemed to her incomplete without it.
Hester at twenty was a laughing, dancing sprite, yet with a certain quaintness and matureness of mind that amused and delighted her father’s friends. She was slim and dark, with a piquant face and fascinating hazel eyes that shot out mischievous lights. They were unusual eyes, and very beautiful with their fringe of long dark lashes; but she did not think so, and compared them scornfully to a cat’s—the only animal she hated. If she could be said to have any vanity it was for her hands, which came in for a considerable share of her attention, and she went to bed in gloves every night of her life.
Julie, whose hands were not a matter of comment, dispensed with this bed-time ceremony, and usually devoted most of her time before retiring to a vigorous brushing of her rebellious yellow hair, which, when it was let alone, rioted all over her head in such babyish curls that her father always called her “Curly Locks.” Her eyes were violet—her lashes and brows dark, like Hester’s, which gave her a most remarkable contrast of coloring. From her mother she had inherited a delicate constitution, and lacked the buoyancy of Hester’s gay spirits; nevertheless, she had a keen sense of humor and laughed immoderately on all occasions at her sister, whom she considered altogether the cleverest and most amusing person she knew. And they knew many delightful people from one end of the country to the other—everywhere except in Radnor, where society was waiting for Mr. Dale formally to present his daughters before setting the seal of its approval upon them.